The Rise of the Roman Empire
by onewritereightnames
Summary: Roman Torchwick sees his father die at the hands of the Grimm at a young age. The selfishness and cowardice of his neighbors contributed to the death of his father. He takes his father's lucky hat and strikes out on his own to create a life out of nothing. M for alcohol, violence, and mentions of sex.


**AN: Previously Roman's father died defending their village alone and without any dust or ammo. Roman's neighbors, despite having plenty of Dust saved up, refused to help. Roman took his father's lucky hat and struck out into the world after stealing some dust from his selfish neighbors.**

Four years have passed since your father died. After leaving the small town you grew up in you found your way to the big city. You found Vale.

At first you lived off of each pocket picked and struggled to eat some days. Those days soon passed as you grew more skilled at thievery and soon you had yourself set up in a small apartment.

Now you run a small gang made up of around half a dozen guys that you've known since arriving in Vale. Life is good, but you know you can make it great.

So you continue to take whatever catches your eye and your loot starts to pile up. But you often think that you're missing something. That there's some greater treasure you could be stealing.

One day you find that treasure. At a glance you think that it'll be easy to steal it away, but as you gather more intel on the job you realize that's not the case. The treasure is protected by a young lady of medium height who has dark red hair and grey eyes.

You want to steal her heart.

She is a waiter at one of the burger joints you frequent and one day you write your name and phone number on the bill after making her smile at your jokes. You avoid the Burger Shack for a full 48 hours and begin to lose hope.

Then your phone rings. You smile. You ask her what she's doing on Saturday night.

You are neither fancy nor high class and you figure that she isn't either so you decide to take her out to a movie. After the movie you walk down to the pier and watch all of the brightly lit ships sail out into the night.

You talk about the movie and laugh and smile and she stands closer to you when the wind starts blowing off the lake. You place an arm around her waist and she smiles.

Your dates continue for the next few weeks and as you spend more and more time with her the desire to steal material things just isn't as strong.

You never do manage to steal her heart, after all, how can you steal what's been given to you voluntarily? You think there's a certain satisfaction in earning something without deception or thievery.

2 months of peace pass. You spend it walking arm-in-arm through the streets. Talking about everything and anything. Making love in the cool summer evening.

Then trouble begins.

The first of your troubles begin when some of your thieving compatriots waste away the last of their loot. They come to you and complain about how there haven't been any heists lately.

You grow angry at them for interrupting your peaceful days but think that maybe you have a solution to their money problems. You tell them to wait while you plan.

More trouble starts when HE arrives. He dresses fancy and talks well to anybody. He can be smart, crude, humorous, or anything else; whatever the situation calls for.

He doesn't seem like the kind of man who would come to a place like the Burger Shack but he soon becomes a regular when you show up near the end of your girl's shift you see him making jokes with her.

She's laughing. Something stirs inside you. A desire to protect what's yours. You already had the most important person in your life stolen from you once. You will not let her be stolen from you.

A week later the plan is ready. It will be the biggest heist you've ever attempted and without a doubt the most dangerous. You finish drafting the papers late at night and you feel unusually nervous. You decide to have a few brews to rid yourself of the nerves. You sit down and watch TV as you drink.

The next morning you wake up in your lazy boy chair and the television is still on in front of you. You drank a little too much but that's alright, it happens.

Your heart nearly stops when you hear it. It's the sound of someone in the next room. The room where you left your plans out. You hear them shifting through the papers.

You curse yourself for a damn fool and quietly take a gun from a discreet safe. You creep into the other room and lower your gun as you see the intruder.

It's her. The only person you love.

There are tears in her eyes. There is anger in her voice. She demands answers and truth. You tell her all of it. The plan. The discontent among your gang. Even about the death of your father and your first theft.

She cries. She punches your chest. She orders you not to go through with it. You tell her it's what you need to do. This heist is your way out of the criminal life. You want to forgo a criminal life, because now you have her. You want her to live comfortably for the rest of your lives. You want to take her away from here, somewhere with a yard. Somewhere to start a family.

Her anger is red hot and gets the better of her. She says there is no "we". She accuses you of wanting the money for your own selfish self. She punches you in the face.

She runs out before you can reason with her. You sit with your head in your hands.

Later that day you stop by a local weapon store. You pick up the custom cane gun you spent most of your remaining money on. It's perfect.

You look at the money left in your wallet. You wish you could trade it all away to have her next to you. The feeling of the cash in your hand makes you sick.

You look up and realize that you're in the shopping district. You have never owned an expensive set of clothes. You think back to how impressive the new man at the Burger Shack looked. You spend every last dollar on a white suit, black dress pants, gloves, and a scarf.

You wander over to the pier and look out. There are no brightly lit ships now. You turn away and walk home. At home you call up the members of your gang and confirm that the plan will go ahead. You watch as the clock ticks away the hours and try to run through the plan in your head, but her red hair and grey eyes keep appearing in your head.

Just as you are reaching in the cabinet for more alcohol you hear a knock. You open the door. Those grey eyes stare into your face. You can't think of anything to say. You hug her. You sit down together and she tries to convince you to take her with you on the heist. She _is_ an excellent fighter with her sickle-shotgun hybrid but you refuse.

You tell her you'll come back for a burger after everything is over.

She asks you to make love to her one more time, to give her another memory if anything goes wrong. You say you need to go out to the pharmacy but she says she doesn't care about the plastic.

Afterwards she lays in bed and watches you dress in your new clothes and she says you look extremely handsome. She makes a few changes to your outfit, however.

She brushes your orange hair down over the black eye she gave you earlier. She adjusts your scarf. Finally she takes your father's hat out of the closet and places it on your head. She kisses you one more time and slips something into your pocket.

You hug her naked body one last time. From that moment on you always remember how her body felt against yours.

The heist starts well. Things go according to plan. The vault of Dust is open and oh my is there plenty to steal in there. When one of your men shoots you know things are about to go wrong quickly.

Your man insists the citizen was reaching for the alarm and now everybody is on edge. A stupid, brave man stands up and attempts to disarm your man. Your man gets the better of him and shoots him dead. A boy runs to the corpse and wails.

"Papa!"

You see red. You rip the mask off of your face. You turn the cane on your man and fire. His blood splashes onto the wall behind him. Your other men turn around and demand answers from you.

They shoot. You shoot.

The alarm is triggered by someone. That means the cameras are back on. Everyone will know you now. You scoop up two duffel bags of Dust and run. You make it to the helicopter just as the first police arrive.

Bullets ping off of the metal as you fly away. You push the copter to its limits. The plan was to make it to an abandoned island in the sky but you soon notice that fuel is dropping fast. Much too fast. The gas tank must have been hit.

So you aim for one of the mountains that are visible from Vale. You just manage to find a clearing as the fuel runs out and your landing isn't quite a crash but it's still rough.

You decide fuck the duffel bags and walk upwards to the ridge of the mountain. From here you have a beautiful view of the entire city. A city that you can never safely return to you.

A lover that you can never return to.

A life that you can never return to.

You reach into your pocket and pull out a small cross. You kiss the cool metal. You touch the brim of your hat.

These are all you have left. These are all you need.


End file.
